Lighting

I have given some thought on what I would like the lighting to be in the film. In the examples above, it is a dominant orange/yellow colour that is slightly over-exposed. The environment that I will be creating will have large windows with this kind of light coming through.

Character Modelling Pt. 1

I began modelling a few weeks ago on Crayon/ Shadow from model sheets that I drew up a few days before I started. The first week of modelling I had negelected some of the rules of when making up a 3D model, so I had to scrap it. This is the second model that I have begun with the body fleshed out. The hands and the head still need to be finished though, which should take the rest of this week and all of next week.

Storyboard

I have fleshed out a storyboard to help me with camera angles and the sequence of events. This is just an initial concept of what camera moves I'm going to do, but the story will remain the same through to completion.

Character Concept Art

I designed my character about a week before the semester began. I wanted Crayon to be tall and long limbed and have the physique of a dancer so that he will be easy to identify as one. His clothing is skin tight so that he will be easy to animate. The decoration around his neck as well as the make up and clothing style will also help the audience in identifying him as a court jester.

The colour choice of Crayon I have decided will be in tones of grey, white and black. I don't want anyone to confuse this as anything but a sad and dark story.

Shadow will have the same body as Crayon, as it is essentially Crayon's shadow come to life. Black will be its main colour theme. The eye colour though I would make a golden brown.

Audio

I have initial thoughts on what I would like the audio to be.

There will be no dialogue added to the film as the storyline will be driven by action of body language and facial expressions. A glockenspiel I would like used for the music box when Crayon first opens it. Then it would fade out and piano would fade in as Crayon begins dancing. More menacing music will be needed when the Antagonist reveals itself and when it drags the Protagonist into the mirror. Possibly dark undertones accompanying the piano as they both dance and cresendo's at the end. A little mysterious music at the end.

Personallly I was going to leave this till the end of semester when the animation is fleshed out more but the sooner it's started the better :-)

Joining Projects

Because we have the choice of eighther two small projects between the subjects KIB 320 and KIB 325 or joining the two into one large one, I had decided to do the latter. I do think that focusing onto one project will benefit the short film terms of bringing greater detail to elements such as animation, modelling, texturing and etc.

For KIB 325, I will create a low poly animatic that is identical to the final film which I will be submitting to KIB 320. The animatic will be recreated in an as yet unspecified game engine, possibly Unity 3D, with all assets modelled in Maya.

Synopsis

The film shall involve two characters, a protagonist, which is a jester/mimist who I have dubbed 'Crayon'. And the antagonist, who is a mirrored shadow of the jester, a representation of Crayon's fears in physical form.

Crayon's back story is that he is that he has the new job of court jester. Not very funny, but loves to dance and is very good at it. While he is on his time off, he goes on exploring the many rooms and passages within this new environment where he happens to come across a large storeroom that looks to be an old dance studio. This is where the story begins.

' A room long forgotten invites our curious character to explore its depths. But he will fatally learn that it's secrets are better to be left alone as the very shadows on the walls come to claim him.'

To sum up the storyline, Crayon enters this room where he comes across a music box. Opening it, he finds the melody playing within very pleasing to him. Yet the music box was holding an evil spirit that reveals itself to Crayon and begins to dance. Thinking that the shadow is unthreatening, Crayon begins to dance with this alien creature. The Shadows true intentions are soon revealed when the it pulls Crayon into the mirror, trapping his new victim for all time.

Inspiration

One of my favourite short films became the inspiration behind the creation of this film. Chaperon Rouge was created by 4 students studying at Supinfocom in France. The film is generally about the story of little red riding hood. Yet the story is an interpretation of the students where little red riding hood is a grown woman and the wolf are dark shadows.

What made this film stand out for me are the use of colours and the modelling of the environments. Texturing and environmental modelling are what interests me in 3D animation the most and to concentrate more on these topics for my film would be more enjoyable for me.

Film Project

It's week 6 and I'm well under way for creating my film for my final project. Pre-production is nearly complete with visual concepts of characters and environment, synopsis, storyboard, and last week I have begun modelling my main character in Maya. I'll begin posting all that I have completed to date in the next couple of days.

Unity 3D Excercise

The excercises that we had to do in Unity went pretty well. Navigating around the interface was simple enough, working similarly like Maya. The second task I decided to create a ramp/slide that spheres would roll down into a pit. The slide and pit I created in Maya and imported into Unity. I had discovered that the spheres, once added with gravity would go straight through the slide, so I had to add Mesh Colliders in order for it to work properly.
The five spheres were added with different weights so some would roll faster than the rest. The camera would, when pressing the trigger, would shoot more sphere's where ever it was pointed.